AZURE

Name: AZURE
SKU: 106746
Price: 15.00 USD
Availability: InStock

Ulrich Drechsler

$15.00

In search of a suitable framework for his diverse interests and forms of expression, Ulrich Drechsler began working on LIMINAL ZONE (translated as “threshold zone”) in 2016. His very personal cross-genre music forge with the three sibling projects Caramel, Chrome and AZURE, which were created in parallel. Each of them stylistically completely independent.

What began successfully in 2020 with the release of the jazz-world-film music hybrid “Caramel” and the accompanying remix album “Caramel ReImagined”, continued in 2021 with the great neo-classical soundtrack “Chrome”, and is now escalating into an electro-acoustic club music storm in 2023 with AZURE. Which brings the LIMINAL ZONE triplets together for the first time.

Ulrich has placed AZURE in the threshold area of electronic club music, trip hop, dance floortrance, drum’n’bass, jazz blasts, ambience to technoid influences. Based on his decades of experience and inspiration in the field of club music (among others with the trio “Café Drechsler”), he developed the idea of a suitable instrumental, electro-acoustic format over a period of almost six years. The specifications: it should be musically extremely flexible, offer maximum sonic and stylistic possibilities and above all – it should be completely realisable live.

A lot of music was written during this period – and discarded again. Different line-ups were tried out – and questioned again. Several times the successful realisation was on the verge of failure. A long, intensive creative process in the course of which Ulrich even rediscovered an old “childhood love”: the soprano saxophone, which he had not played since his student days.

If “Caramel” and “Chrome” are the planets in the LIMINAL ZONE universe, then AZURE is the black hole. That cosmic phenomenon whose unimaginable mass and associated gravity mean that neither matter nor light can ever escape once they have crossed its so-called event horizon. Everything behind it remains invisible to the observer. The boundary between what we think we know and what could be possible.

For Ulrich Drechsler, AZURE is the journey into such a musical black hole. Where the journey leads – no idea. He no longer wants to orientate himself to fixed musical genres and boundaries. He wants to learn, wants to try and search something new, is willing to fail and to start again. Instead of resting on what he knows and what works, he wants to explore what is unknown to him. On board is a highly motivated team of like-minded accomplices whose skills Ulrich can’t stop raving about.

Tyrolean drummer Raphael Keuschnigg and Viennese bass icon Oliver Steger form the foundation of AZURE. Together they deliver bloodcurdling, merciless beats and bass. On top of that, the two keyboardists and synthesizer aficionados Lukas Leitner and Bernhard Höchtel create large-scale atmospheres, breathless soundscapes and endless rhythmic drones, layer upon layer. Listening to them, one gets the feeling that each of them would have far more than just two hands at their disposal.

Finally, Ulrich’s saxophones and clarinets, which lay floating hymns, trance-like rhythms and soundscapes above, below & in between, and let everything merge into a huge soundtrack. Contrary to what some journalists have written, the triplets “Caramel”, “Chrome” and AZURE are not a self-contained trilogy. They form the constantly evolving musical basis for the likewise growing structure of LIMINAL ZONE.

Own and curated concert series, cycles and conceptions, the in-house record label Liminal Zone Records, the so-called “Lava Lamp” (a visual interface interacting with music in real time, which Ulrich had specially designed) and much more. In addition to AZURE, two more remix albums are planned for 2023, as well as the foundation of “Liminal Zone Sounds” (a cooperative network with young electronic artists and producers in several cities and countries). All this is LIMINAL ZONE – and the journey has just begun.